knight/datahub
1
0
Fork 0
Code Issues Pull Requests Actions Packages Projects Releases Wiki Activity

[examples/openspending] - openspending v0.2 (#907)

Browse Source 
* [examples/openspending] - openspending v0.2

* [examples/openspending][m] - fix build

* [examples/openspending][xs] - fix build

* [examples/openspending][xs] - add prebuild step

* [examples/openspending][m] - fix requested by demenech

* [examples/openspending][sm] - remove links + fix bug
This commit is contained in:
Luccas Mateus
2023-05-30 20:22:58 -03:00
committed by GitHub
parent cb7d801968
commit 14974edcbf
474 changed files with 25289 additions and 116 deletions
Download Patch File Download Diff File Expand all files Collapse all files

26
examples/openspending/content/resources/journo/index.md Normal file
View File

@@ -0,0 +1,26 @@
---
title: Follow the money
---
Follow the money - A guide for journalists
------------------------------------------
Welcome to the OpenSpending guide for journalists who want to investigate money flows.
History is littered with awards and accolades for those tenacious journalists who have dutifully discovered money that was spent on something it shouldn't have been. Evidence of spending is often the ultimate proof of wrongdoing. These stories have ranged from [presidential campaigns spending money on surveillance](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watergate_scandal) to [Members of Parliament dipping into the public purse for their own benefit](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_parliamentary_expenses_scandal), with many variations in between.
### Spending data ###
From the point at which funds come into the government's possession to when they are spent, this money takes a journey. A journey of the kind this kind requires a guide book, and that's exactly what the Open Spending project aims to provide in the following weeks -- a series of guides for smart journalists who haven't yet had the stomach for all those government funds, policies, and that strange financial language, but do have an appetite for a good story.
Here are the guides we'll publish in the coming weeks:
- [A guide to tax avoidance and evasion](/resources/journo/resources/tax-avoidance-evasion/) with a full set of choices of stories from shadow markets in Africa to big companies setting up overseas shell companies;
- [A guide to reading accounts both public and business](/resources/journo/resources/reading-accounts/)
- The decisions for how to allocate public funds to different projects are often completely open. We provide a list of the allocation formulas and suggest what it would be sensible to correlate the allocation of funds with;
- A guide to the many ways of grouping spending in the U.K. and beyond to help you find what you're looking for;
- A guide to tax models. The U.K. uses a model called the General Computation Model -- we look at it in detail through contact with researchers involved;
- A guide to spending transactions in the U.K. and beyond;
- A guide to outsourcing services and how to judge if they are good value for money.
We'll let you know on the OpenSpending mailing list when new guides are published.

148
examples/openspending/content/resources/journo/notes.md Normal file
View File

@@ -0,0 +1,148 @@
<h4>EU Budgeting</h4>
* Home page: http://ec.europa.eu/budget/index_en.cfm
* EU Budget may not exceed 1.23% of MS GNI
** Funding sources: own resources: taxes, levies (25%), VAT (14bn), pctage of MS GNI (92.7bn).
* Revenues must equal expenditures (balanced-budget requirement)
** EC Claim: EUR 0.64 per day per citizen. http://ec.europa.eu/budget/explained/faq/faq_en.cfm#how_much
* '''Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF)''': long-term financial planning done by the EC.
** Original plan: http://www.consilium.europa.eu/ueDocs/cms_Data/docs/pressData/en/misc/87677.pdf
** Defines maximum amounts for broad categories ('headings') of spending
** Legally binding since Lisbon Treaty
** Mechanism: http://ec.europa.eu/budget/explained/budg_system/fin_fwk0713/fin_fwk0713_en.cfm
** Headings: Sustainable Growth, Natural Resources, Citizenship, Global Player, Administration, Compensations
** 2007-2013: Total committment appropriations: €925,576 bn
*** http://ec.europa.eu/budget/figures/fin_fwk0713/fwk0713_en.cfm
** 2014-2020: €1,025 billion in commitments (1.05% of the EU GNI) and €972.2 billion (1% of EU GNI) in payments
* EU Budget:
** Basic structure: http://ec.europa.eu/budget/explained/budg_system/structure/struct_en.cfm
** See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_the_European_Union
** Activity-Based Budgeting; 1 Section on Revenue, 10 Sections on Spending (bulk: Commission; Section 3)
** Commission budget has ~30 policy areas derived from headings, each as a "Title" in the budget. Titles have Chapters, Chapters have Articles.
* Exception: '''European Development Fund (EDF)''' - not part of the budget!
** Development aid to Asian, Carribean and Pacific Regions
** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Development_Fund
** Managed by DG Development (formerly EuropeAid) together with an additional 70% of in-budget ODA. EDF has higher efficiency.
** EuropeAid Recipient database: http://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/work/funding/beneficiaries/index.cfm?lang=en
** The 10th EDF has a budget of €22 682 million: 2008-2013 - http://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/how/finance/edf_en.htm
* EU Donor Atlas 2011 - http://development.donoratlas.eu/home.html
** The EU Donor Atlas offers easy access to a wide array of development statistics, mostly from OECD DAC and the World Bank's World Development Indicators, covering both needs and financial resources.
=== Visualizations ===
* EC Where do funds go? Spending by heading - http://ec.europa.eu/budget/biblio/multimedia/interactive/wherefundsgo/wfg_en.cfm
* EC Where do funds come from? Types of revenue - http://ec.europa.eu/budget/biblio/multimedia/interactive/wherefundscomefrom/wfcf_en.cfm
* EC Funds by member state - http://ec.europa.eu/budget/biblio/multimedia/interactive/fundsbymemberstate/index_en.cfm
* BBC: Rough breakdown + source countries: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8036096.stm
=== Data ===
* Budget on-line (PDFs): http://eur-lex.europa.eu/budget/www/index-en.htm
** Python scraper (needs QA): https://bitbucket.org/pudo/dpkg-eu-budget
* Checksums:
** €120.7 billion for the year 2007
** Key Figures 2011 - http://ec.europa.eu/budget/figures/2011/2011_en.cfm
= Policies =
* Grant opportunities by policy: http://ec.europa.eu/contracts_grants/grants_en.htm
* judgment in Joined Cases C-92/09 and 93/09 - only legal persons have to be published, natural persons may not (data privacy) - http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:C:2011:013:0006:0007:EN:PDF
== Common Agricultural Policy ==
* 48% of EU Budget, €49.8 bn in 2006 alone
** Budgets: http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/fin/budget/index_en.htm
** General info on financing - http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/agriculture/general_framework/l11096_en.htm
* Remarkably hard to find good figures on 2007-2013 budgets for the funds.
** Non-BS summary by European Parliament: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/parliament/expert/displayFtu.do?language=en&id=74&ftuId=FTU_4.2.6.html
* European Agricultural Guarantee Fund (EAGF): 320.055 bn 2007-2013 (
** Financial Reports: http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/fin/finrep/eagf/index_en.htm
* European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD): 96,3 bn 2007-2013 (App. 20% of the fund dedicated to the CAP)
** Legislation summary: http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/agriculture/general_framework/l60032_en.htm
** Rural Development investments: http://ec.europa.eu/budget/library/biblio/documents/fin_fwk0713/tab_rural_devt_2007-2013.pdf
=== Data ===
* Official portal - http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/funding/index_en.htm
* http://farmsubsidy.org/
== Common Fisheries Policy ==
* European Fisheries Fund (EFF): 2007-2013: €4.3bn
* FAQ http://fishsubsidy.org/faqs/
* Home page: http://ec.europa.eu/fisheries/cfp/eff/index_en.htm
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Fisheries_Policy
* Legislation summary: http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/maritime_affairs_and_fisheries/fisheries_sector_organisation_and_financing/l66004_en.htm
=== Data ===
* Official portal - http://ec.europa.eu/fisheries/contracts_and_funding/the_european_transparency_initiative/index_en.htm
* http://fishsubsidy.org/
== Framework Programmes for Research and Technological Development ==
* Seventh Framework Programme (FP7): 2007-2013: €50.521 bn over 7 years + €2.7 bn for Euratom over 5 years
* Structure: http://ec.europa.eu/research/fp7/understanding/fp7inbrief/structure_en.html
** JRC (EC)1751; Cooperation 32413; Ideas 7510; People 4750; Capacities 4097 (mn €, FP7)
=== Data ===
* In FTS: http://ec.europa.eu/beneficiaries/fts/index_en.htm
* Project descriptions in CORDIS: http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/projects_en.html
== European Union Regional Policy ==
* Funding for regional and cohesion policy in 2007-13 amounts to €347bn - 35.7% of the total EU budget for that period – or just over €49 billion a year. All cohesion policy programmes are co-financed by the member countries, bringing total available funding to almost €700bn. - http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/thefunds/funding/index_en.cfm
* 2007-2013 objectives: Convergence (80%, 2007-1023: € 283.3bn), Regional competitiveness and employment, European territorial cooperation
** Convergence applies to regions with less than 75% of avg GDP of EU27.
** EC coverage app: http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/how/coverage/index_en.cfm
* Regional competitiveness and employment (17.5% - 2007-2013: € 55bn): everyone else, also coming from ERDF/ESF
** developing clean transport, supporting research centres, universities, small businesses and start-ups, providing training, and creating jobs
* European territorial cooperation (2.5% - 2007-2013: €8.7bn): cross-border, transnational and interregional cooperation, coming from ERDF
* Eligible areas: http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/atlas2007/index_en.htm
* Strategy aspect: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_Funds_and_Cohesion_Funds#A_New_Strategic_Approach
** Community Strategic Guidelines 2007-2013: http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/sources/docoffic/2007/osc/index_en.htm
* '''Financial Times - EUFunds''': http://eufunds.ftdata.co.uk/
** CKAN package on this: http://ckan.net/package/eu-structural-funds
==== Reading ====
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Regional_policy
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_Funds_and_Cohesion_Funds
* http://europa.eu/pol/reg/index_en.htm
==== Data ====
* http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/country/commu/beneficiaries/index_en.htm - direct links to the lists of beneficiaries of the European Regional Development Fund and the Cohesion Fund
* Operational programmes DB: http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/country/prordn/index_en.cfm (Scrape!)
=== European Regional Development Fund ===
* (ERDF) - 2007-13: €201bn
* Purpose: The ERDF supports programmes addressing regional development, economic change, enhanced competitiveness and territorial co-operation throughout the EU. Funding priorities include modernising economic structures, creating sustainable jobs and economic growth, research and innovation, environmental protection and risk prevention. Investment in infrastructure also retains an important role, especially in the least-developed regions.
* Rules: http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/thefunds/regional/index_en.cfm
* Legislation summary: http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/regional_policy/provisions_and_instruments/g24234_en.htm
* Not much info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Regional_Development_Fund
* 2000-2006 home page: http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/funds/prord/prord_en.htm
=== European Social Fund ===
* (ESF) - 2007-13: €76bn (10% of EU Budget)
* Purpose: The ESF sets out to improve employment and job opportunities in the European Union. It intervenes in the framework of the Convergence and Regional Competitiveness and Employment objectives.
* Rules: http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/thefunds/social/index_en.cfm
* Home page: http://ec.europa.eu/esf/home.jsp?langId=en
==== Data ====
* Official portal: http://ec.europa.eu/esf/main.jsp?catId=31&langId=en
=== Cohesion Fund ===
* (CF) - 2007-13: €70bn
* Purpose: The Cohesion Fund is aimed at Member States whose Gross National Income (GNI) per inhabitant is less than 90% of the Community average. It serves to reduce their economic and social shortfall, as well as to stabilise their economy. It supports actions in the framework of the Convergence objective.
* Rules: http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/thefunds/cohesion/index_en.cfm
* Countries: Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. Spain is eligible to a phase-out fund only as its GNI per inhabitant is less than the average of the EU-15.

42
examples/openspending/content/resources/journo/resources/reading-accounts.md Normal file
View File

@@ -0,0 +1,42 @@
---
title: Reading accounts
---
*Reading accounts, both public and corporate is all too often seen as something best left to specialists and accountants. But with a few key ideas and some terms explained you will find that accounts are really quite readable and a great source of news.*
This guide aims to show you how to read accounts. This advice should be taken with an exploratory attitude because there are no universal standards for presenting accounts - although you would think there should be given the number of accounting standards and regulators.
Ultimately accounts are a statement for a company’s or public body’s shareholders (yes, public bodies have shareholders - they are the taxpayers) and so putting accounts together is a mixture of sticking to accounting guidance and trying to be clear for the particular investors.
We will outline common patterns that you will see in accounts over and over, no matter what type of organisation you are interested in or where in the world they are based. It’s these features that form the headings of this resource.
## 3 Statements
To fully describe the financial health of an organisation there are usually three financial statements and a document full of description and footnotes to contextualise them.
The three statements are:
### cash flow statement
For the year it shows money the organisation received and spent through particular activities. Usually it starts with money coming into the organisation followed by money leaving the organisation and ends with a total where spending is deducted from income to give a figure that represents the balance of money gained or needed. Often there are cash flow statements for different aspects or activities in the organisation. For example there may be a cash flow for profit making activities and another for costs of keeping the organisation ticking over.
<div class="well" 'markdown="1"'>
Important note: An organisation’s overall profit is not calculated from cash flows so it’s incorrect to refer to the final total of the cash flow statement as profit. It’s also incorrect to take the positive figures from the cash flow and sum them to form a profit figure. The reason that this is incorrect is because the cash flow statements don’t take into account subtleties of the organisation’s delivery of goods and services in the timeframe of the financial year. For example say you have a company that buys sofas from a manufacturer to sell on to customers. The profit making cash flow statement will show the sales figures and the cost of buying the sofas from the manufacturer. But there are some customers who buy on credit and don’t pay for two or three years and even though a customer may have agreed to buy a sofa it may not have been delivered to them. So the profit in this situation is calculated as the costs for the sofas actually delivered to customers and the amount customers actually paid in that financial year.
</div>
### the profit and loss
*This is where subtlety of costs and timing is considered...*
Gives the overall money earned or loss suffered by an organisation over the year.
### the balance sheet
Shows the investors the assets and debts held by the organisation at the end of the year. The question is: *is the organisation (or your local council) solvent?* This means that at this point in time if the whole operation was closed down could the stuff owned be used to pay off debts and how much would be left over for the shareholders, or how much would the shareholders owe, if this was to happen. Assets include everything of any value such as cash owed, cash currently held within the organisation and an estimate of the worth of items owned.
**Now a really neat part about accounts is that these three statements are related.**
## Relationships between statements
The three statements all show something different about the financial health of the organisation, but in themselves they are limited in what they can tell us. However, in combination the financial statements can start to answer questions like:
* **How long are products held, on average, before they are sold?** This is found by taking the cost of goods purchased from the income statement and the inventory assets from the balance sheet. The cost of goods purchased is the cost of all products sold to customers in the financial year. The inventory assets is the cost of the stock of products at hand, ready to be sold, at the end of the year. The average time products are stored is given by dividing the cost of goods purchased into the inventory of assets at year end then multiply the whole thing by 52 (the number of weeks in a year). The result is the number of weeks a product is stored on average. When reporting this figure it's good to take into account the accounting problems for the cost of goods sold expense and the cost of inventory. For example finding out how has depreciation of goods been taken into account can help explain the figures so check the footnotes of the financial statements for details.
* **How long, on average, does it take for a customer to pay for their purchase?** Take the inventory asset account again and the accounts payable liability, both in the balance sheet. The accounts payable liability is a short term non-interest-bearing liability arising from customers buying on credit. It is significant because the period where the goods have been purchased but no money is exchanged is financed from debt and stockholders equity. The time is calculated by dividing the accounts payable into the inventory and multiplying that by the length of time products are held (calculated above). The result is the time in weeks that it takes, on average, for a customer to pay after they have bought the product.
*This is just a quick introduction to some of the questions it is possible to answer using financial statements. Now see which ones of these you can find for your region.Recommended further reading is [How to read a financial report](http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/How_to_Read_a_Financial_Report.html?id=Xzd3-NojmkgC) by John A. Tracy.*

86
examples/openspending/content/resources/journo/resources/tax-avoidance-evasion.md Normal file
View File

@@ -0,0 +1,86 @@
---
title: Follow the money - An exercise in tax evasion and avoidance
---
Tax evasion and tax avoidance are constantly in the news - but what are the difference between the two and how do you start investigating them as a journalist?
This resource was originally designed as an exercise in journalistic judgement run at the first [data expedition at Mozilla Festival](http://blog.okfn.org/2012/11/14/data-expeditions-at-mozfest/) and we'll continue to build on it as we do more and more investigations into the topics.
Read the explanations of the various options below and then try out the **challenges** at the bottom of the page to find them for yourself.
## Tax evasion or tax avoidance?
The first choice you, as a journalist, face in this tax investigation is to pursue **tax avoidance** (currently legal but this legality could be challenged) or **tax evasion** (illegal non payment of tax through non disclosure or non payment).
There is no correct answer to this exercise - it simply offers a number of routes to investigating tax - all routes have a dataset so the resulting story is really a reflection of the morality and motivations of the journalist rather than available resources.
* Go down the tax avoidance route if you are looking for people breaking the law. You now choose between corporate and personal income tax avoidance.
* Go down the evasion route if you are looking for people exploiting loopholes.
Here's the flow chart of options:
[![Data expedition](http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8184/8368409648_92d093db30.jpg)](http://www.flickr.com/photos/object-group/8368409648/sizes/n/in/photostream/)
## Route 1 - Tax Avoidance
### Income Tax: The K2 and EBT tax avoidance schemes
<em>The K2 and EBT schemes are relevant for those investigating income tax.</em>
These are aggressive tax avoidance strategies that relies on there being no taxation on loans, and creating a separate organisation based in a tax haven that can receive all the profits and then give an interest free loan that is designed so that it never has to be repaid to the tax avoider.
For example an individual avoids paying tax by becoming a contractor to a company in a tax haven, the individual earns a large salary but this is paid to their agency and the individual is only paid the minimum wage on which they pay tax at the rate for the country they live in, they are then given the rest of their earnings as an interest free loan from the agency which they don't pay tax on.
In this route there are two options, to look at a) a tax avoidance scheme that some celebrities have used or b) to look at a scheme that is used for highly paid employees in well known organisations.
a) The celebrity scheme is the **K2**. The [guidance](http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/eimanual/eim45000.htm") covering this is on the revenue and customs (HMRC) website.
b) The scheme that is used for highly paid employees in well known organisations is the **<a href="http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/news/ebt-news0812.htm">Employee Benefit Trust schemes</a>** in the UK until their use was strongly discouraged.
### Other investigations: Name and Shame
If these two investigations do not satisfy your desire for a scoop there is a third option where you aim to name the people using these schemes.
This involves putting together pieces of the tax avoidance picture.
We can get some sense of how frequently these schemes are used, or how much money is saved as some countries' tax collection forms require the tax avoided by individuals (or lost from the system) as some countries require taxpayers to describe their scheme - in the UK DOTAS does this and there are stats <a href="http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/avoidance/avoidance-disclosure-statistics.htm">here</a>.
An explantation of DOTAS is <a href="http://www.rossmartin.co.uk/index.php/penalties-a-compliance/403-disclosure-of-tax-avoidance-schemes-dotas">here</a>.
This narrows down which schemes are most used. Then we can figure out which tax havens are most likely to be used as the [OECD monitors havens](http://www.oecd.org/ctp/harmfultaxpractices/listofunco-operativetaxhavens.htm) and attempts to establish transparency in tax havens.
Once you get down to a country and a tax avoidance scheme we can start looking for agencies that are set up there.
There are groups who set up schemes and there are their customers and there are the people or companies who benefit.
### Corporations: Transfer pricing
If you select the tax avoidance for corporations option you will most likely be looking at transfer pricing. This is the strategy of having smaller companies within the same corporate empire. The smaller companies can be based in tax havens and each operate in a way that is maximally tax efficient to the empire overall. This is particularly common in online retail.
An online book retailer might have a company specifically for its book sales based in Luxembourg and so pays a Luxembourg VAT rate (only 3%), but the books are bought all over the world. Look for places with low local tax rates and then see which branches of firms are located there.
Alternatively if you are interested in ways that tax avoidance may be managed they are recommended to investigate the General Anti-Abuse Rule (GAAR) that is being developed at the moment [here](http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/tax_avoidance_gaar.htm). The rule aims to deter abusive tax avoidance by reducing legal uncertainty around what constitutes aggressive tax evasion and what constitutes legitimate tax planning.
## Route 2: Tax evasion
If your selection was tax evasion rather than tax avoidance then you can choose the severity of the evasion; ranging from shadow market to individuals evading tax and wanted by the tax authorities.
#### Shadow market
#### Naming tax evaders
The individuals considered to be evading tax and with a warrant issued by a UK court and that are being investigated by the UK tax authority are fully described on the [official HMRC account](http://www.flickr.com/photos/hmrcgovuk/sets/72157631087785530).
[![Tax Evaders](http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8545/8652943180_7dcb6a8c84_z.jpg
)](http://www.flickr.com/photos/hmrcgovuk/sets/72157631087785530)
## What now?
So, we've described the main routes for this little exercise in tax reporting. Below, we've suggested some possible challenges for you to investigate yourselves - please let us know via the [OpenSpending mailing list](http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/openspending) if you have any success in uncovering avoidance or evasion via these routes!
### Challenges
1. Write a piece on how the K2 scheme works, who has been shown to use it and which organisations facilitate it.
2. Show the history of the EBT scheme, who used it and how did HMRC attempt to stop the use of EBT schemes.
3. Pick one of Starbucks, Amazon or Google who were recently accused of tax avoidance and take a look at the [written evidence](http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmpubacc/writev/716/contents.htm) for their taxable involvement in the UK. Use this a basis for an explanation of the company's specific tax avoidance mechanism.
4. Collate and compare different estimates of the size of the shadow market in a wide range of countries. The reports with estimates we suggest are from [the European Commission](http://ec.europa.eu/europe2020/pdf/themes/06_shadow_economy.pdf) and the [IMF](http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2012/wp1247.pdf) but other sources should be added. You can explore the significants of the shadow market and measures to reduce its size.
5. Classify tax evaders published on the [official HMRC account](http://www.flickr.com/photos/hmrcgovuk/sets/72157631087785530) for example as importing goods without paying UK tax and fraudulently claiming state benefits etc. Then to put these individual costs in the context of cost estimates for these crimes in the country as a whole. For example we can get overall cost of benefit fraud [here](http://research.dwp.gov.uk/asd/asd2/index.php?page=fraud_error) and the loss of funds through importing goods without paying tax from this [HMRC report on tax gaps](http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/research/direct-tax-gaps.pdf).